In Morocco the Consular Protection System affected Jews more closely than in Turkey. It was for many years their sole protection against the oppressions of the Bashaws and the cruel fanaticism of the people, and on this ground there was much to be said for its so-called abuses and irregularities. The right of protection seems to have been derived from a very loosely worded article of the Anglo-Moorish Treaty of 1728, granting immunity from taxation to all the native servants of British subjects, whether Moors or Jews.[98] This Treaty was abrogated by the general Treaty of 1856 (Article XXXVIII) and a more definite scope was given to British Consular jurisdiction (Article III), but in a Treaty of Commerce signed on the same day, it was expressly stipulated (Article IV) that native agents employed by British subjects "shall be treated and regarded as other subjects of the Moorish dominions."[99] Nevertheless, the old abuses continued in virtue of the "Most favoured nation" clause,[100] and a very large number of native Jews received protection at the hands of the Consuls of all the Powers, partly on account of their usefulness and partly on account of the insecurity of their lives and property under the Moorish authorities. It was, however, difficult to restrain Moorish fanaticism, and the Consuls were frequently called upon to protect their Jewish protégés or to avenge outrages of which they became victims.[101] DOCUMENTS. * * * * * PROTECTION OF RUSSIAN JEWS IN PALESTINE.--THE AGREEMENT OF 1849. _Earl Russell to the Jewish Board of Deputies._ FOREIGN OFFICE, _February 1st, 1864_. SIR,--I am directed by Earl Russell to acknowledge the receipt of your two letters of the 29th of December and 22nd inst., in the former of which you enclose a Memorial to His Lordship from the Jews of Safed and Tiberias, praying that they may again be placed under British protection, of which they assert that they were deprived by Mr. Consul Finn under the circumstances stated by them. I am now to state to you in reply for the information of the Memorialists that Her Majesty's Government have every disposition to give effect to the arrangements which were made with the Russian Consul General in 1849, namely to afford British protection to those Jews who, having declined to return to Russia, have divested themselves of their Russian Nationality, and so forfeited the protection to which _primâ facie_ they were entitled to look. But I am to add that it must be distinctly understood that this can only be done by the production on the part of the individual seeking British protection of the formal letter of Dismissal from the Russian Consulate, shewing that he has been cast off from Russian protection, and would thus be left otherwise unprotected. If he can produce no such letter, Her Majesty's Consular Officers will not be entitled to grant to such individual British protection.